Friday, I ran some errands. I had to put gas into the car — I was all the way down to the bottom of the tank. Unusual for me — I usually refill it when I hit half. Of course, because I was so low, they were working on the street and had a detour so I couldn’t get to my usual gas station. I made it to another one, but I was not a happy camper.

One of the annoying things about Cape life is that you’re stuck in ridiculous traffic all summer on roads that can’t handle it. Then, during “shoulder season” — spring and summer — you’re stuck in one-lane only traffic because that’s when they work on the roads.

Only this year, they did roadwork all summer, too, so the summer traffic was even worse than usual, and now it’s no better. Plus, the damn tourists just aren’t going home. It’s gotten to the point where there’s about a week in mid-March where you can get where you need to go on time, where it’s not blocked by snow and too early for roadwork.

The very idea that they want to replace the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges with bridges doubling the current spans is not the solution. There’s no way for that traffic to feed into the current roads and no way to widen those roads. Just have one bridge for on-Cape traffic and one for off-Cape. It will still be a mess. The Cape is beyond capacity.

If you live on Cape, it’s harder and harder to get anywhere OFF Cape and get back to get anything done. And it’s getting harder and harder to get around on Cape. Not to mention that the mass transportation system is awful on Cape, and limited to get on and off. You can get to Boston, but not a whole lot of other places.

On top of that, all the tree-cutting is out of control. It has nothing to do with the health of trees, and everything to do with clear-cutting and leaving the Cape looking like a cross between a sandbar and a prairie. Personally? I like the oxygen trees provide. Breathing matters.

So Friday was annoying. I went to the library to do some work, but it was chaotic and noisy (not in a good way), so I wasn’t there very long.

I couldn’t get all my errands done on Friday because of the traffic. Plus, I hadn’t slept much — insomnia most of the night.

Crashed early on Friday because of Thursday night’s insomnia and slept for 10 hours, which is unusual for me.

So, Saturday, I had to finish what I couldn’t get done on Friday, which included taking the garbage to the dump, coming back and taking the recycling to the dump, and washing out the garbage bins. Also got some raking done, our first raking of the seasons.

In the afternoon, I switched out the lace panels on the first floor for the spiderweb curtains. Even though today is the first of October, and I don’t usually do it until now, I had the time on Saturday, so that’s when I did it. I put up most of the interior decorations. I’ll put up the exterior ones this week.

Roasted a chicken on Saturday night (served with sweet potatoes and spinach). We’ll have some good leftovers this week. I’ll do a curried chicken salad, and maybe a chicken potpie.

Made cinnamon buns on Sunday morning for breakfast. Wrote on Sunday, had a good writing day. Didn’t get everything I’d hope to finish done, but it was still a good writing day.

Tessa hates being an only cat, even though we’re giving her lots of extra attention. We went to the shelter down the street to meet some new arrivals. There are some sweethearts, but we had more questions before we can try to adopt. Let’s hope they can answer. It’s the same place where I adopted Tessa, but they’re made the adoption process more complicated since I adopted her.

Sunday night, made turkey meatloaf in mushroom gravy, served with mashed potatoes and steamed peas.

Read a mystery where the premise was good, but the execution poor. The protagonist annoyed me. She wasn’t cute and relatingly human –she was whiny and annoying. Read two more Travis McGree novels. Again, the female characters were awful. The way Travis tries to romanticize his promiscuity gets annoying. Just admit you’re a dog and be done with it. Stop trying to make us believe you’re different and somehow noble, because you’re not. He’s as damaged as the hot messes he’s always bedding.

Finished reading a couple of memoirs, one by someone with whom I’d worked in New York, another by someone involved in some of the same productions. It amazed me how differently the anecdotes were printed on the page than what was said backstage.

A few major things are up in the air right now, which is something I don’t do well with. But I have to be flexible and keep my ability to think on my feet. This will be a stressful month. And then we go back into Mercury Retrograde, which I dread on so many levels I can’t even start talking about it. There’s too much going on at the same time as not enough. It’s a weird kind of friction.

More insomnia Sunday night into Monday, which means I woke up cranky and out of sorts. Decent early morning writing sessions, time with a client. The necessity of yet more errands that I couldn’t finish over the weekend, piled on with end-of-month errands, meant I missed meditation.

Onsite with a client, and then some other appointments. Too much tension in my life right now.

But as long as I keep showing up at the page every day, at least there’s progress somewhere.

Twitter Updates

Pages

NMLC’s Mermaid Ball

Devon’s Random Newsletter

To get Devon's Random Newsletter, send an email to devonsrandomnewsletter at gmail dot com with "Subscribe" in the header.

Devon’s Bookstore

GWEN FINNEGAN MYSTERIES

Archaeologist Dr. Gwen Finnegan is on the hunt for her lover’s killer. Shy historical researcher Justin Yates, frustrated with his failing relationship, jumps at the chance to join her on a real adventure through Europe, pursued by factions including Gwen’s ex-lover and nemesis, Karl, as they try to unspool fact from fiction in a multi-generational obsession with a statue of the goddess Medusa.
Buy links here.

Stuck in NYC when plans for their next expedition fall through, Gwen and Justin accept teaching jobs at different local universities. Adjusting to their day-to-day relationship, and juggling the academic and emotional demands of their students, they are embroiled in two different, disturbing, paranormal situations that have more than one unusual crossing point. Can they work together to find the answers? Or are new temptations too much to resist? For whom are they willing to put their lives on the line? Available on multiple digital channels here.

NAUTICAL NAMASTE MYSTERIES

SAVASANA AT SEA

Yoga instructor Sophie Batchelder jumps at the chance to teach on a cruise ship when she loses her job and her boyfriend dumps her in the same day. But when her boss is murdered, and the crew thinks she's taking over her predecessor's blackmail scheme, Sophie must figure out who the real killer is -- before he turns her into a corpse, too. A Not-Quite-Cozy Mystery.
Buy Links here.

COVENTINA CIRCLE ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

PLAYING THE ANGLES
Witchcraft, politics, and theatre collide as Morag D’Anneville and Secret Service agent Simon Keane fight to protect the Vice President of the United States -- or is it Morag who needs Simon’s protection more than the VP?
Buy links here.

THE SPIRIT REPOSITORY
Bonnie Chencko knows books change lives. But she never expected her life to change because she happened to duck into a small bookshop in Greenwich Village on a rainy late November night. She’s attracted to Rufus Van Dijk, the mysterious man who owns the bookshop in his ancestors’ building. A building filled with family ghosts, who are mysteriously disappearing. It’s up to Bonnie and her burgeoning Craft powers to rescue the spirits before their souls are lost forever. Buy Links here.

RELICS & REQUIEM
Amanda Breck’s complicated life gets more convoluted when she finds the body of Lena Morgan in Central Park, identical to Amanda’s dream. Detective Phineas Regan is one case away from retirement; the last thing he needs is a murder case tinged by the occult. The seeds of their attraction were planted months ago, when Phineas investigated an attack on Amanda’s friend Morag. Now, fate is determined to draw them close. But can they work together to stop a wily, vicious killer, or will the murderer destroy them both?
Buy link here.

THE JAIN LAZARUS ADVENTURES

Hex Breaker by Devon Ellington. A Jain Lazarus Adventure. Hex Breaker Jain Lazarus joins the crew of a cursed film, teaming with tough, practical Detective Wyatt East on an adventure fighting zombies, ceremonial magicians, the town wife-beater, the messenger of the gods, and their own pasts.
This series will re-release in 2020.
Visit the site for the Jain Lazarus adventures.</a

Full Circle: An Ars Concordia Anthology. Edited by Colin Galbraith. My story is “Pauvre Bob”, set at Arlington Race Track in Illinois is included in this wonderful collection of short stories and poetry. You can download it free here.